A snippet from a Japanese game mag:

Konami mystery Wii titles:

Untitled music simulation game
Untitled soccer game
Untitled baseball game
Untitled action game


Am I alone in thinking Para Para Wii?



\(^_^)¬

I got discharged yesterday.

6 days in hospital, confirmed shingles and I came out with an extra secondary infection to boot.  can't say fairer than that now can we.

Finally got back into some Zelda and have finished the first dungeon, overall, I like it..... but.... I can't help but feel the controls are somewhat lacking.  While I like being able to aim things with the wiimote the whole having to shake the thing to get your sword out and then again to attack is silly.

Wii Sports is still taking a lot of my time (much like the first weekend with it) and despite the cheating computer AI winning at baseball is not so rare now.  Wii Play..... worth it for the controller but really you do need people round to get the most out of that so I've not done much with it since last weekend.

So, who has thier Wii and why are there no firendcodes being thrown around? My Plaza is looking far too empty.....

Here's mine:3773 4329 5403 5791 

So, it seems I got a fine from LU (tfl?) for not touching in or out. Very unjust if you ask me. I used 4 buses (as the piccadilly line was suspended) and then the tube from Finsbury Park to Bank. I had already used a bus before all that too so by my reckoning I had spent enough to get my pay as you go oyster to roll over into a travelcard.

Then used DLR and didn't touch out (it was dark and card readers were nowhere to be seen, since been told they were being hidden by stupid free paper people) so having touched in at Bank and not touched out I presume this is where the problem occured.

On the way home I ran for the train as it pulled into the station so again didn't manage to touch in and as I had not touched in on DLR I didn't touch out at Finsbury Park. That journey never happened then. Went to get the bus and despite my having about £2 on my card it said no funds.

I gather I am now probably in minus money on my card. Lovely.

Still, I got out of Docklands without getting stabbed or anything, quite a task if you take the offer from my brother at face value. I was told that if I didn't have to be home (as in 30 minutes or so away) I could have the sofabed.

It's ebay time again.

Beatmania Core Remix HDD - even if you can't use it you get a 2.5" HDD for your troubles!!!

GTO Manga, I have issue 1 - 18 all up for just 99p plus delivery by arrangement if you're local. Even if you buy them all!

Educational! Seriously, light hearted as Love Hina is this dual language version is better than the rest!! Again, if you're local I'll meet you with them.

It's time to put my Evangelion stash on soon too..... bought as an investmant but I fear I missed the boat on when to sell them. I'm half tempted to keep the Kubrick complete set mainly as I know I will lose far too much money on what I originally paid on them. I still remember tracking down the last one I needed in Southampton during Minamicon 5 or 6!

And finally.....

My Wii has been slated as Ready for Dispatch by Woolies. Their site says:
"This item has billed successfully and is ready for despatch within the next 24 - 48 hours (usually the same working day as the item is billed)."

Somehow I don't think I'll get it early though.

I've been given a challenge, my brother says I can't name all of these people. Sadly he's right as I can't get them all. A little help?
( Celebrity Lineup )

Back in London... seems odd.

It is annoying to think that there is a 4th Mix Plus almost on my doorstep only to be found less than a week before I leave Japan.  Still, it was fun to have a good go on it and the nostalgia certainly came rushing back. 

It was so odd to play DDR and not worry about being falied after missing 2 arrows, actually just having fun and having to lern new patterns made it feel so much more fun than it has been for a good few years.  4th was the version I played the most (along with Extra) without speed mods and it probably my favourite mix if pushed for an answer.

Butterfly was tried but I choose the Maniac D steps not knowing what they are, now I know they are the double steps!  Music, Cafe, Hero, Mr Wonderful, Boom Boom Dollar and Butterfly Upswing were all grand.  As would Conga Feeling have been if I had nto made a total mess of it.

To quote myself, "it's like the wayback machine for DDR".  It's ages since I had a bash at a Solo machine before and it will probably be ages again till the next time but I have some fun videos of it so I'll post one of them up.  This is James (Flazh) playing.



And to keep a little traditinal culture going....




Now I'm off out to tie up too many loose ends I still have with only 3 more full days left.

Damn stupid Mac OSX.  Here I am trying to get the new episode of Lost and the built in internet sharing on OSX keeps crapping out on me.  I have to reboot the machine and re-share the connection to get everything back up and running and so far it has taken over 3 hours to get 41% when I should have been done by now easily.

This rain is never ending, I think it started sometime yesterday afternoon and although I did sleep from 2am to 8am it has been raining ever since as far as I know.  There are a couple of typhoons approaching Japan now and I suppose this is the start of it.  Les just hope the real stuff hits next weekend (not this one coming but the one after) when we will be in Hokkaido.

Went to the Ghibli Museum yesterday, second visit and would you believe it, the same film was showing!  For those that may not know the Ghibli Museum shows a 15 minute film ,made for and only shown in the Museum, everyday.  There are 5 films in the selection and they do a different one each day of the week.  I don't remember if it was a Thursday I went there back in 2003 but I think it could have been.  Either way, I saw the same one again.

Not so bad as it could be though as 1) it is a semi sequel to Totoro which is great and 2) I could actually understand far more of the story (no English subs you see) than I did before.  Besides, seeing a Neko Bus group outing including a Neko Shinkansen can't be bad can it?

Didn't get to try the apprently wonderful pork cutlet sandwich as it was an hour long queue for the cafe but I did sip on some Nausicaa branded beer... which was awful.

An evening of drinks at a pub that had all you could drink for 1000yen (a fiver) spelt trouble for me and I knew it.  I was not going to have that much beer so dabled with the various sours they had (as did the others).  These drinks were a mix of a type of sweet drink and shochu or plum wine.  I worked my way from beer to orange sour to ramune sour (ramune is like a mild lemonade) to lemon sour and back to beer when it hit 9pm and they called last orders!  I didn't know we had a time limit dammit!

This rain is getting even worse, the wind has whipped up something rotten and I just saw a cat getting blown off of a parked cars roof!  I need to go to 7/11 to pay my mobile phone bill too and it has to be done today.....  So far I have survived the day with cucumber and marmite sandwiches but I'm running out of bread!

The biggest problem could be this house.  Typical houses here are built in about 3 months and follow a simple method; build a wooded outerskin, add wooden inner skin, fill gap with concrete.  This one is a bit old though (my guess is about 25 years) and has no luxury such as concrete.  It's already freezing cold and I'm not going down the petrol station in this weather for parrafin.  At least the windows are wire glass......


How could you go wrong with a game that has Hitler on the cover?  Surely you can't.  Add to that the company he's in (of course I should discount Churchill.... right??) and it's a good assortment of the 20th centruies greatest troublemakers.  

Sadly, I can't try it out as my Genesis is at home but I had to get this just for the photo op.





I do wonder what the European/US cover artwork looks like actually.... would they do the same thing, change it completely or perhaps they just added in Hideki Tojo on the cover instead?

Recently I went to see the Yomiyuri Giants play the Yakult Swallows at the Tokyo Dome (this is baseball by the way.... I found it easy to deal with as I had beer delivered to my seat by hot girls but you do not have that luxury so bear with me) but found the atmosphere somewhat lacking.  A week later I saw the Swallows at home in Jungu Stadium playing the Hiroshima Carps.

Much better and this video shows why, the fans have some passion.  The umbrellas being waved are a subtle hint that the other time should hit the showers as the home team just scored a home run and intend on winning the game.  The funniest thing is it big guy with the huge sake bottle, you couldn't even get water bottles into the Tokyo Dome but look at him go!




Final Fight was cut outside of Japan.  Apprently we don't need breasts to motivate us into a bit of a beatdown in the projects.  Here's the intro so you can see what you missed (maybe it was not the arcade here that was cut and just home release, anyone remember?).





Second to last train on a week day taking mostly drunk people out of Shibuya and dropping them off at various places along the Inokashira line.  This was not actually as bad as it gets and I have sadly been on the inside of this scrum far too often but it does give you an idea of what travelling in Tokyo is like.





This is a video of the Shibuya Matsuri (festival), it was rainy and dull o some random weekday but they were having a grand old time.  Look on the left hand side for the guy with his hand on his hip, he looks so very gay.

It's that time again, time to advertise my wares for you all to take a cheap look at. Feel free to pass these links to someone that might want any of my things, this lifestlye don't come cheap you know!


Pop'n Music Original Soundtrack CD

Pop'n Music 4 Arcade Originals Soundtrack CD

Pop'n Music 6 Original Soundtrack CD

Pop'n Music 7 AC/5 CS Soundtrack CD

Pop'n Music 11 Arcade Card Set

Guitar Freaks Pocket 2

DrummaniaV Guitar FreaksV KonamiSyle Set PS2 JP

Drummania 9th Mix Arcade Card Set

Famicom Mini Series Box 1

Famicom Mini Series Box 2

Capcom Retro Game Collection Vol. 1 1942 PS

Dezaemon 64 Boxed JP N64

Mario Shindou Version N64 JP

F-Zero X Expansion Kit 64DD

Club Nintendo Stylus Collection 6 DS Colour Stylus Set




And maybe of not so much interest to you lot........

Unopened Tamagotchi UK Boxed Version

Hello Kitty 3 Pick Plectrum Set

6 Pack of Hide of X Japan Fernandes Plectrums

How many of you know Saved By the Bell....? I would guess most if not all.

Here's something they never got around to doing but I bet Screech would have loved to have tried.



If anyone can get the video working let us know how good (or bad) it is as Firefox and IE have issues with it for me.

A little while ago numerous people told me about a game shop, not just a normal run of the mill place but a real treasure. It had been written about in this LJ (http://jamie-sam.livejournal.com/3432.html) and featured in various websites. I decided a vist was in order and just recenly made the journey.

Armed with the address in English only, no map and the simple knowledge that the shop is a 30 minute walk from the station my friend and I headed off on our adventure.

A little luck was on our side as we hit the place about as directly as you can without crossing fields but I decided to do a guide as we journeyed back and took the photos on the way (which explains why some of them are dark... we spent far too long in that shop!).

Guide to Finding Chiba Game Shop - Coming Soon!

The shop is divided into 4 main sections; game, music, manga and porn. they also sell some sweets drinks and have some ufo/gambling machines. The pictures detail the game section.

This gives you a good idea of how big this place actually is, all of those games on the wall are held on by hooks and you are free to scramble up and grab whatever you want. Dotted around are the most unsafe foot stalls I have ever tried to use.

What's in the box (in the bag)?





Scroll down if you want to know what it is.

In other news......

I've tried to stay away from computer things while I've been here and although I have missed messing with flux capicitors and the likes it has been a nice change of pace. Got my hands dirty this morning though as I tried to get to grips with Mac OS X on a more personal level.

I have had net access via a Japanese Mac while I have been here and while I know enough to get online and do what I want (added to the fact I am lazy and was intent on this being a holiday) it has got far too annoying not being bale to use an English keyboard. Now I am doing ebay stuff I need easy, reliable online access too so I decided to get my machine online.

Spoofing the Mac's MAC address onto my laptop didn't get past the PPPoE modem so now I'll have to pop out and buy a router. At least I can grab one that is useful for home I guess and finally upgrade from WEP B to WPA G.

A self taught crash course in network recon was fun, not as long as I thought by any stretch and I managed to get a terminal up and showing me the relevent info quick enough without looking online for guidance. I still dislike Macs though.......

















I just looked over the photos.... no one needs to point out the tissues and Gunsmith Cats book, the book is still in it`s shrink wrap and anything on the floor now is just where it was kicked when I folded the futon this morning. Carry on......









And so, the mystery box in all it`s glory.....